


Warnings in the Night

by dreamiflame



Category: La Belle et la Bête | Beauty and the Beast
Genre: Alternate Universe - Dark, Gen, Ghosts, gothic horror
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-10-05
Updated: 2016-10-05
Packaged: 2018-08-17 10:38:10
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,304
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8140903
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dreamiflame/pseuds/dreamiflame
Summary: Beauty learns she and the Beast are not alone in the castle. Nor is she the first girl to live there.





	

**Author's Note:**

  * For [HannaM](https://archiveofourown.org/users/HannaM/gifts).



> I hope you enjoy this treat, HannaM! For all that I have be careful about reading them, I love writing ghost stories.
> 
> Thanks to my beta for helping me polish this fic and make it better.

The castle was huge and empty. Beauty felt like she was the only soul alive within the grounds. But somewhere, thankfully out of sight, the hideous Beast lurked.

Beauty shivered at the thought of the Beast padding around just out of sight and wrapped her shawl more tightly around her. The castle was drafty and eerily silent.

Candles and fires lit themselves when Beauty moved from room to room, but the cold still clung to her. She wandered the long, winding halls, finding a library, a music room, and an endless procession of unused bedrooms.

What a Beast needed with a castle as big as this, Beauty couldn’t imagine.

It had been quiet for so long that the first, soft sound sent an abrupt shiver down Beauty’s spine, and set her heart to racing. 

As though from far away, Beauty heard a woman sob. It cut off as quickly as it began as if whoever was crying was trying to stifle herself, and the silence descended again. Then there was another choked off sob, seeming closer.

Beauty hurried around the next corner. “Hello?” she called. “Hello, is someone there?”

The corridor was empty in front of her. Beauty turned in a circle, but saw no one, not even the Beast.

Another sob, right behind her. Beauty spun, but the hallway was still vacant. 

“Hello?” she called.

Nothing responded, but the cold grew more intense, until Beauty felt like she was freezing from the inside out. She shivered and turned back to her room, knowing it was the one place in the castle she had found she felt warm within.

Still, she glanced several times over her shoulder, searching for whoever had been sobbing. No matter how often she looked, no one was there.

*

“Will you marry me, Beauty?” asked the Beast, and Beauty put down her fork, trying not to tremble. Now he will kill me, she thought.

“No, Beast,” she said. He sighed heavily, and miraculously went away.

The curtains across from her fluttered in the breeze from the closing door. Beauty stared at them, heart still racing from the moment she had been sure was her last. Gradually, she realized they were still moving, and there was no breeze left in the cozy dining room. Her heart skipped a beat from fear.

“Is someone there?” she asked, voice hitching in her throat. The curtains rippled and Beauty thought for a moment she could hear a woman, or perhaps two, call out to her.

“We are here! Beware, beware!”

But the sound was so faint, she doubted her ears.

After a long pause, the curtains slowly swung to a halt. Beauty shuddered and looked at her half full plate, not hungry at all anymore. She finished her wine and left the food to whatever strange forces cleaned up after her on the table.

She left a candle burning that night, just in case.

*

They came to her in the dead of night, when the world was darkest. 

“Beauty,” called a voice. It sounded like Beauty’s mother, and she woke with a smile on her face.

Beauty opened her eyes and sat up, then screamed, unable to help herself. Three young women were in her room, pale with death. Beauty could see the shapes of the wall hangings through them, and they shone with a faint, unearthly glow.

The ghosts flinched when she screamed, and shifted uneasily, flickering like flames in the faint candle light. 

“Beauty, be calm,” said the one who looked the oldest. In life she must have been around Beauty’s eldest sister’s age. “We mean you no harm, and you don’t wish to summon the Beast.”

Beauty drew the blankets to her chin and pressed her hands to her mouth, trying to calm herself as instructed. Though she had always imagined there were more things on Earth than she had experienced before, she had never thought to be face to face with spectres. 

When she felt she could speak without screaming, she uncovered her mouth. “Who are you?”

“I am Rose,” said the first ghost, who had spoken before.

The second ghost, her golden hair still vibrant despite her translucency, raised a hand in greeting. “My name is Dawn.”

The last, a dark skinned beauty, looked away, to the floor. Her voice was barely audible when she said “I’m Honey.”

“Hello,” Beauty said politely, as there was no reason to be rude to these unfortunate women. “Why are you in my room?”

The ghosts drew together, and Rose frowned. “We came to warn you, Beauty. The Beast may seem reasonable, and patient, but he won’t be forever.”

Honey glanced up at her, then away. “He doesn’t like to be told no,” she whispered.

Beauty gasped. Dawn nodded, putting an arm around Honey. “We were here, before you, and he asked us to marry him as well. We all refused, until one day he lost patience.”

“And then?” She didn’t want to know, but she had to.

Rose gave her a tiny, sad smile. “And then we died.”

Honey turned into Dawn and hid her face, and Beauty heard the same choked off sobs she’d heard before. She shuddered.

“But I don’t want to marry a Beast,” she said. “I don’t think I could ever love him.”

The ghosts were fading, getting even harder to see. “We warned you,” said Rose. Honey wept on. Dawn stared at Beauty with dead eyes and said nothing. And then they were gone.

Beauty stared where they had been and trembled beneath her blanket for the rest of the night. 

*

When the sun came up, she ate her solitary breakfast, and walked in the gardens, smelling the roses she had foolishly asked her father to bring her. Her wandering took her to a path lined in stone, and she let her feet lead the way, coming finally to a mausoleum.

Beauty didn’t want to go in, but like the night before, she had to know. She entered the dim space, smelling of earth and decay, and shuddered violently, feeling cold.

The sunlight barely pierced the gloom inside, but Beauty could make out three stones. ROSE said the first, the date of death most recent. HONEY said the second, dated more than thirty years before Rose’s.

The final one was worn and hard to read, and Beauty reached a hand out to trace the letters. DAWN. Dawn had been the first.

She heard a noise behind her and spun, letting out a startled scream as the Beast filled the doorway. “You should not have come here,” he said.

Beauty flattened herself back against Dawn’s tomb. “They came to me, last night.”

The Beast gave a heavy sigh. “They come to me at night, as well,” he said. He didn’t move from the doorway, and Beauty wondered if he was planning to kill her here, to make it easier to entomb her with the others. He would add another stone, this one engraved BEAUTY.

“How long have you been like this?” she asked.

He shook his ragged head. “I lost count of the years a long time ago. I have been searching all this time to find a woman to love me. I had hoped that woman was you.”

The Beast took a single step forward. “I suppose I was wrong.” He raised a huge hand, full of claws, and Beauty closed her eyes and flinched away. But some strength of character made her clench her fists and turn again to face him.

“I could be,” she said. If her voice was more faint than she would have liked, at least she managed to say it.

He stopped, head tilted and something like hope kindling in his monstrous eyes. “You think so?”

“I do,” Beauty said, and felt ghostly fingers squeeze her own in acknowledgement of the lie.


End file.
